Reva Ochuba

Founder + Designer

Ifeoma

On how she got here +

How did you get to where you are today?

I’ve dropped out of college a couple of times, but always knew I loved clothes. Especially in high school, I was obsessed with getting dressed in the morning. I would wake up at 4 am just to sew or alter vintage garments I wanted to wear to school that day. Missed my school bus nearly every day too.

Anyway, fast-forward through me figuring out a few things - I moved to New York, then eventually went back to school, studying at Cal State LA. It’s one of the only public schools in Southern California with a fashion course; it’s a super small program with maybe 30 people in the graduating class.

I liked certain things about it. There was a lot of new talent emerging both musically and artistically during that moment. Definitely a great time to be in New York. October 2013, a month after I moved there, I began an internship at Eckhaus Latta. Mike and Zoe took me in when I literally knew nothing about clothing construction or production. I don't know why they let me be a total fashion dunce for those months, but they have always been a great help to me.

What was your role?

I worked there for about three years; they became bi-coastal in the middle of my tenure, so I continued to work with them when I moved back to LA for college. By the end I was a studio assistant, but I started as an intern. Before that point, everything I'd made was like, "Oh, I'm going to put this and this together and see where this goes." It was cute, but I couldn't remake it. I couldn't tell you how I got there.

My project during that season, their AW14 collection, was to sew these thick, long felted strips into tubes. Do you know how hard it is to bring a tube inside out? I think there were like 30 of them. It was tedious, but I was so happy to do it because I was like, "Yeah, I'm making fashion!"